As the debate about the war o­n Iraq rages o­n, some kind-hearted and well-meaning Malaysians have come out to join the global sentiment for 'peace' - whatever it means - for the Iraqi people.

While their sentiments are admirable, these peace proponents are generally not made aware that the people in other parts of the Middle East and Arab world - like Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Oman - also have the right to live in security and dignity.

Above all, the ordinary people in Iraq, especially the Kurdish minority, Shiites and other dissidents who have been persecuted by Saddam Hussein, are also humans whose rights and dignity must be respected, protected and restored.

With this two-sided or balanced perspective in mind, I have separated the anti-war movements into two categories.

One is the apologists, fellow travellers and defenders of the Saddam regime, which has committed many atrocities and crimes against humanity.

To those who insist the Saddam regime, simply as part of the anti-American Third and Islamic world, can do no wrong, I must humbly admit that I am not smart enough to rebut them.

For how can I hope to reason with these full-time and all-purpose anti-Americanists, some of whom still hold the absolute denial of the existence of the Holocaust, Nanjing Massacre, Cambodian Killing Fields and/or the bloody Tiananmen crackdown o­n students, as their unifying article of ideological faith?

However, there is also a mass of kind-hearted, well-meaning, idealistic and less arrogant people whose minds, being without ideological fixation, are still open for moral reasoning.

Honest admission

Indeed, it is remarkable that an increasing number of anti-war activists, including Muslims, have begun to honestly and publicly admit that the Saddam regime has indeed committed many atrocities and crimes against humanity, including Muslims of both the Sunni and Shiite denominations and Kurds, inside and outside Iraq.

The honest admission serves to progressively narrow the range of differences in the process of searching for a practical or actionable - not intellectual or ideological - solution to just and lasting peace for the ordinary Iraqi people and Muslims in the Middle East.

Of course, there are those who acknowledge the Saddam regime's atrocities, but do not care as long as their businesses are prosperous and their countries safe by virtue of geographical distance. They are simply selfish and irresponsible.

Some may also secretly opine that the cruelties, however uncivilised, are ideologically justified or justifiable as long as the inhumane acts serve some larger or higher causes like 'Islamic brotherhood', 'liberation of Palestine', 'Third World pride' and 'Pan-Arab unity'.

They may even secretly think that these acts could be omitted in public discourse because there is now a critical need for strategic unity against 'Anglo-American hegemony'.

This type of realist reasoning is evidently not as moral, righteous or peace-loving as it appears to be.

It is essentially politico-strategic and is no different from that of the realists o­n the other side of the divide who argue that the use of force is justified or justifiable if the equally large or high, if not larger or higher, causes like 'hegemonic peace' and 'stability' are ultimately served.

Foreign intervention

Then there are also those who believe that the atrocities committed by a regime is still no justification for 'foreign intervention'.

This is an ultra-nationalist, reactionary and almost fascist argument that holds the sovereignty and territorial integrity of a state as absolute.

Contextualised in religious discourses, this secular doctrine of sovereign and territorial absolutism defies the injunction against idolatry.

According to an extremist form of this idolatrous argument, a human ruler or regime can do whatever it likes (or hates) within the territory it claims to be under its jurisdiction, including massacre, genocide and the use of war-like forces against unarmed dissidents.

People and governments in other countries can o­nly watch, without any right to do anything practical to stop it.

However, even under modern and secular international law, genocide and other crimes against humanity, conducted within the sovereign territory of a country, are still punishable individually or collectively by the international authorities.

In serious and extreme cases like those German concentration camp commandants gassing Jews and gypsies to death en masse in the Third Reich, the claim of o­nly acting 'professionally' under superior order is not acceptable as valid defence.

In fact, the United States, under the Clinton administration, was quite rightly criticised for its reluctance and hesitation to send troops to Rwanda in 1994, Bosnia between 1992 and 1995, Liberia in 1996 and Sierra Leone in 1999 when massacres and genocide were taking place.

However, the unilateral invasion of Uganda and Cambodia in 1979 by the Tanzanian and Vietnamese forces, whatever the 'ulterior motives' of the invaders, did effectively stop the massacre and genocide being committed by the regimes of Idi amin and Pol Pot respectively, although the sovereignty of Uganda and Cambodia were violated for a moment. (see Joseph S Nye, Jr, Understanding international conflicts - An introduction to theory and history , London, Longman, 2002, pp157-158)

Certainly, the reluctance and hesitation of the United States could be, and were in fact, criticised as 'isolationist', 'selfish' and 'heartless', but the effective and timely use of forces of Tanzania and Vietnam were actually criticised as 'unilateralist' and 'imperialist'.

Opportunists and obstructionists could argue either way to advance their ideological and material interests, as long as the target of their criticisms and selective moral outrage is a politically correct o­ne under the prevailing circumstances.

The nature of opportunist and obstructionist reasoning always ensures that "heads, they win; tails, others lose".

Non-violent means

There is another group of people who argue that while 'foreign intervention' should and must be allowed to save lives and prevent or suppress massive human rights violations in another country, the form ought to be non-violent and non-military.

It's certainly a better and morally more acceptable position because, if successfully carried out, it not o­nly saves lives but also causes none or little 'collateral damage'.

However, the problem here is, if a tyrant has become so wicked as to commit crimes against humanity for personal or regime security, could his or her heart be softened and mind straightened without being pressured by just force or the threat of it?

This was exactly the critical point of contention between the advocates of appeasement (like then British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain) and armed confrontation (like Chambelain's nemesis and successor, Sir Winston Churchill) in the 1930s, o­n the rise of Nazi Germany.

Churchill, despite his scandalous neglect of the defence of British Malaya and Singapore, has been proven right by history in opting for armed confrontation with Adolf Hitler.

The pathologically murderous thoughts and actions of such tyrants o­nly obey the logic of force, not the force of logic.

Examples are: Uganda's Idi Amin and Cambodia's Pol Pot; the Nazis; Japanese militarists in the 1930s-40s; and Serbian fascists in the 1990s.

In the current scenario, after defying the many resolutions of the United Nations for many years to disarm, the Saddam regime o­nly signed a presidential degree to 'ban' the production of weapons of mass destruction a few days ago after the threat of war intensified.

Would the Saddam regime have yielded to this little degree, without his regime being surrounded by Anglo-American arms, or without the UN inspection works being backed by the Anglo-American threat to use force?

Throughout human history, the statecraft of making peace and war never follows pacifist and academic reasoning.

Even then, a significant amount of weapons of mass destruction in the form of chemical and biological agents is still reported by UN inspectors to be still "unaccounted for".

It follows that to call for unilateral peace without ascertaining if Saddam would strike back after regaining relatively military strength and breathing space in diplomatic fields, is rather naive and unrealistic.

We are living in the real world and dealing with an artful tyrant with a proven record of cruelties and trickeries.

Security Council split

However, to address concerns of US hegemony, the Anglo-American arms should be transformed into a multinational or multilateral force to confront Saddam's regime and conduct a humanitarian intervention.

But this brings us to the problem of the Security Council of the UN.

Ideally, all members of the Security Council should immediately and collectively intervene to disarm Saddam's regime and bring it to justice - if necessary by the force of arms.

However, there is evidently a split (to the delight of the Saddam regime and its secret allies all over the world) of opinion, if not interest, in the Security Council between France, Russia and China o­n o­ne hand, and the United States and Britain o­n the other.

It is in the realm of international diplomacy that the council must reach a timely, practical or operational consensus.

The frightening possibility is that the Saddam regime has succeeded in its alliance-breaking strategy by exploiting the economic concerns or financial interests of some countries to pit them against the other.

Human rights, dignity, security and even lives of ordinary Iraqis and other Muslims in the Middle East are sacrificed o­n the altar of financial and commercial interests.

Is 'peace' under such circumstances just for the Iraqi people and lasting for Iraq's neighbours?

Warmongers, autocrats, dictators, tyrants, terrorists and their apologists are not stupid people.

They can repeat the doublespeak word of 'peace' as often as some credulously kind-hearted people of the world would like to hear.

Here lies the great moral responsibility of all those well-meaning people of the world who call for 'peace' without considering the contextual meanings, implications and consequences of such unilateral 'peace'.

To put it bluntly: Who among the anti-war campaigners and marchers can stand up and put their names down for public record to vouch specifically for the good behaviour of the Saddam regime in the future, and in the absence of arms and effectives forces?

JAMES WONG WING o­n is chief analyst of malaysiakini and Strategic Analysis Malaysia (SAM) < http://www.analysismalaysia.com/ >. Wong is a former member of parliament (1990-1995) and a former columnist for the Sin Chew Jit Poh Chinese daily (now Sin Chew Daily ). He read political science and economics at the Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. While in Sin Chew , he and a team of journalists won the top awards of Malaysian Press Institute (MPI) for 1998 and 1999.